StatsCan remains relevant

On the eve of its 100th anniversary, Statistics Canada remains an important source of data for the nation, said one of the agency's former chief statisticians.

Kingston's Peter Kirkham, who held the agency's top job for five years, said Statistics Canada's provision of unbiased information is even more important today.

"Its biggest contribution is providing data that gives everyone in Canada an opportunity to understand all the various activities and developments that are going on in the country, not only as a country as a whole but the individual parts, right down to towns," Kirkham said. "This is becoming even more important than in the past because we have entered an era of big data."

Gov. Gen. Julie Payette is to take part in a ceremony at Statistics Canada's headquarters Ottawa on Friday to mark its centenary.

Kirkham led Statistics Canada between 1975 and 1980 and was brought in from an economic and business teaching position at the University of Western Ontario to help improve the accuracy and timeliness of information the agency was putting out.

"Turmoil," was how he remembers that time.

In the 1970s, the Bank of Canada and the federal finance ministry was seeking a way to eliminate the business cycle.

Many economists at the time believed they had figured out how the economy worked and were looking for ways to eliminate the ups and downs of economic growth. The only thing they lacked, Kirkham said, was accurate, timely information.

But plans to tinker with the business cycle were shelved when the impact of the oil crisis that followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War was felt. The sharp rise in oil prices due to an oil embargo by Middle East producers caused inflation to climb dramatically, starting in 1974 when it rose to 11 per cent.

Labour unions called for wage increases to compensate and the government responded with wage and price controls to keep a lid on inflation. Those measures were phased out by 1978, just in time for the second oil crisis, touched off this time by the Iranian Revolution.

Kirkham left Statistics Canada in 1980 to become chief economist for the Bank of Montreal. He retired in 1992.

He remains a proponent of Statistics Canada and the importance of having unbiased information for crafting government policy.

Like anything related to the government, Kirkham said that the kind of information Statistics Canada collects and publishes can be the subject of intense political dispute, in public and behind the scenes.

"You can imagine the tensions that go on at the political level and Statistics Canada is there in the middle of the ring and everyone is throwing things at them," he said.

In 2010, the Conservative government scrapped the mandatory long form census, but it was reinstated in 2016 by the Liberal government.

"The only way that Statistics Canada can operate in those circumstances is to be as truly professional as they possibly can and totally non-political," Kirkham said. "They have to be open with their data, they have to describe where the shortcomings are and try and convince people they have got the best numbers."

Since moving to Kingston, he's advised the City of Kingston and the Kingston Economic Development Corporation on local population trends.

"We've had such an incredible change in terms of how our economies work and what the implications are for even cities like Kingston," he said. "We've got to delve into the data to understand what is happening, because most people don't understand what is developing."